Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Distressing |
DistressingAdjective1. Causing distress or worry or anxiety; "distressing (or disturbing) news"; "lived in heroic if something distressful isolation"; "a disturbing amount of crime"; "a revelation that was most perturbing"; "a new and troubling thought"; "in a particularly worrisome predicament"; "a worrying situation"; "a worrying time". 2. Bad; unfortunate; "my finances were in a deplorable state"; "a lamentable decision"; "her clothes were in sad shape"; "a sorry state of affairs". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "distressing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1258. (references) |
Synonyms: DistressingSynonyms: deplorable (adj), distressful (adj), disturbing (adj), lamentable (adj), perturbing (adj), pitiful (adj), sad (adj), sorry (adj), troubling (adj), worrisome (adj), worrying (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Pain | Distressing; afflicting, afflictive; joyless, cheerless, comfortless; dismal, disheartening; depressing, depressive; dreary, melancholy, grievous, piteous; woeful, rueful, mournful, deplorable, pitiable, lamentable; sad, affecting, touching, pathetic. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Distressing |
| English words defined with "distressing": Afflicting ♦ Carking, confusing ♦ fearful, frightful ♦ hot water ♦ ill, Imbitter ♦ poignant ♦ screen memory, stymie ♦ terrible. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "distressing": Abandon, Absalom, Affrighted ♦ Copperas, Cries, Cross Roads, Crying ♦ Dwarf ♦ Ebony ♦ Grave ♦ Hail, Hospital ♦ INDIGESTION, Itch ♦ Jar ♦ Lap-dog ♦ Need, Neurotic Disorders, Nurse ♦ Postman ♦ Ruins ♦ Sardines, Scalding, Snakes, Sores, Stillborn ♦ Thermometer ♦ Vinegar. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Ah, I'm afraid we'll have to stop the film there, as some of the scenes which followed were of a violent nature which may have proved distressing to some of our viewers. (Monty Python's Flying Circus; writing credit: Douglas Adams; Graham Chapman) | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Distressing predicament of the honorable John Boyd Thacher ... Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | You are a distressing pair, you and Cranly. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | That way, they won't be linked to an uncomfortable or distressing event. (references) | |
Genital herpes outbreaks can be distressing, inconvenient, and sometimes painful. (references) | ||
Drugs are commonly used to control signs of agitation, but they can have distressing side effects. (references) | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| Speaker | Term | Phrase(s) |
James Monroe | 1817-1825 | With the limited means in the power of the Executive, instructions were given to the governor to accomplish this object so far as it might be practicable, which was prevented by the distressing malady referred to. |
Andrew Jackson | 1829-1837 | The many distressing accidents which have of late occurred in that portion of our navigation carried on by the use of steam power deserve the immediate and unremitting attention of the constituted authorities of the country. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Distressing" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 89.08% of the time. "Distressing" is used about 293 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 89.08% | 261 | 18,276 |
| Lexical Verb (-ing form) | 10.92% | 32 | 61,292 |
| Total | 100.00% | 293 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
distressing furniture | 37 |
distressing wood | 13 |
distressing technique wood | 4 |
distressing paint | 4 |
distressing jean | 4 |
distressing furniture painted | 3 |
distressing | 3 |
cabinet distressing kitchen | 3 |
distressing furniture wood | 3 |
distressing technique | 2 |
cabinet distressing | 2 |
distressing leather | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "distressing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | i hidhur (acid, acidulated, acrid, acrimonious, bitter, salt, sardonic), i dhimbshëm (distressful, dolorous, lamentable, painful, sore, sorrowful). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | فاجع (afflictive, agonizing, calamitous, catastrophic, grievous, painful, tragic), كئيب (bleak, blue, cheerless, damp, dark, dejected, depressed, depressing, depressive, desolate, disconsolate, dismal, dispirited, distressful, doleful, dolorous, down, downcast, down-hearted, drear, dreary, droopy, dyspeptic, funeral, funereal, gloomy, glum, gray, grey, grief-stricken, grieved, grievous, heavy-hearted, ill, joyless, leaden, lifeless, low-spirited, melancholic, melancholy, moody, mournful, out of spirits, rueful, sad, saddening, somber, sombre, spiritless, sullen, tearful, weary), مقلق (bothering, disconcerting, disquieting, distressful, disturbing, perturbing, troublesome, troubling, upsetting, worrisome, worrying), محزن (depressing, dismal, doleful, dolorous, gloomy, grievous, mournful, pathetic, rueful, sad, saddening, sorrowful, tragic, woeful), مؤلم (aching, agonizing, causing pain, distressful, excruciating, grievous, painful, sad, sore, sorrowful, tormenting, tormentor). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | тежък (cumbrous, dense, difficult, faint, grave, grievous, grinding, hammering, hard, heavy, hefty, high, hulking, labored, laborious, laboured, leaden, lumping, lumpish, lumpy, massive, massy, muggy, onerous, painful, plodding, ponderous, robust, rugged, sad, severe, shrewd, sledgehammer, slow, smart, smashing, soggy, solemn, sore, stiff, stodgy, taxing, thorny, tight, tough, traumatic, trying, unwieldy, uphill, weighty), печален (dark, disconsolate, distressful, dolorous, drear, grave, grievous, heavyhearted, lamentable, lugubrious, mournful, rueful, sad, somber, sombre, sorrowful, tearful, tristful, woeful). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 困厄 (Distress, Distressed). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | zneklidòující (disquieting, disturbing), zarmucující, strašný (awful, chronic, dire, dreadful, fearful, fearsome, formidable, frightful, ghastly, gruesome, hairy, hellish, hideous, hopeless, horrible, horrific, terrible, tremendous), smutný (dismal, doleful, elegiac, gloomy, miserable, plaintive, sad, sorrowful, tearful, unhappy, upset, woeful, woesome), bolestivý (hurtful, painful, sore), údìsný (frightful). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Finnish | huolenalainen (alarming, anxious, full of care). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | triste (disconsolate, dismal), tourmentant, pénible (dismal, distressed), inquiétant (disquieting, disturbing), bouleversant. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | peinlich (awkward, careful, disconcerting, embarrassing, embarrassingly, lurid, meticulous, mortifying, mortifyingly, nasty, painful, painstaking, scrupulous, scrupulously, uncomfortable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | מזעזע (outrageous, shocking, staggering), מצער (dearth, deplorable, fewness, grievous, lamentable, littleness, paucity, regrettable, sad, saddening, smallness, sore, sorrowful). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | lesújtó (crushing, distressful, fulminatory, overwhelming, startling, woeful), elszomorító (depressing, saddening, woeful). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indonesian | mendukakan (distress). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | doloroso (aching, achy, dolorous, grievous, painful, sad, sore, woeful, woesome), desolante, penoso (ache, agonizing, grievous, harm, harrowingly, hurt, pain, painful, pensive, puny), luttuoso (distressful, mournful, tragic), angoscioso (afraid, agonizing, fearful, grievous, scary, timid, timidly). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Korean | 괴롭힘 (Afflicting, Annoying, Badgering, Plaguing). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | smeihagh (afflicting), seaghnagh (afflicting, afflictive, grieving, grievous, heart-breaking, sorrowful, troubled or troublesome person), creoi (adamant, bitter, bitter of frost, blistering, blistering as language, difficult, dry, hard, hard-boiled, hard-set, hardy, heartless, near, near with money, neat, obdurate, solid, steely, stiff, stiffen, stubborn, tough). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | istressingday doloroso (agonizing, bitter, doleful, dolorous, grievous, painful, sad, salt, sore, sorrowful, trying), angustioso (oppressing), aflitivo (afflicted, lancinating, mortifying, painful). (various references) dureros (aching, afflicting, dolorous, grievous, grievously, heart-breaking, painful, sad, smart, sorrowful), dezolant (melancholy), jalnic (beggarly, deplorable, doleful, forlorn, heart rending, lamentable, lamentably, lamenting, mangy, mean, miserable, miserably, mournful, pathetic, pathetically, piteous, pitiable, plaintive, rueful, ruefully, sad, sorrowful, sorry, squalid, woeful, wretched). (various references) терзающий, огорчающий. (various references) tužan (disappointing, dismal, distressed, distressful, doleful, dumpish, elegiac, funereal, grievous, joyless, lamentable, lugubrious, mirthless, plaintive, sad, tearful, unhappy, wailful, woeful, woesome), nesretan (distressful, hapless, unfortunate, unhappy). (various references) penoso (embarrassing, grievous, hard, heavy, labored, laborious, laboured, onerous, painful, toilsome, tough). (various references) ömmande. (various references) acıklı (deplorable, depressing, distressful, dolorous, hurtful, lugubrious, pathetic, piteous, rueful, sad, sorrowful, tearful, touching, weepy, woeful), üzücü (afflictive, devouring, distressful, dolorous, grievous, harrowing, heartbreaking, heavy, painful, regrettable, rueful, sad, sorrowful, trying, vexatious, vexing, woeful, worrisome, worrying), ızdıraplı (distressful, excruciating). (various references) тривожний (alarming, anxious, restless, uncomfortable). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | mesa, miser, misera, miseram, miseri, miseris, misero, miseros, miserrima, moleste. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Language | Date | Source | Genesis Chapter 41, Verse 57 |
| Greek (transliterated) | 250 BC | Septuagint | Kai pasai ai cwrai hlqon eiV aigupton agorazein proV iwshf epekrathsen gar o limoV en pash th gh |
| Latin | 405 | Vulgate | Omnesque provinciae veniebant in Aegyptum ut emerent escas et malum inopiae temperarent |
| Middle English | 1395 | Wyclif | And alle the prouynces camen into Egipte, that thei myyten bigge meetis and the yuel of myseis swagen. |
| Renaissance English | 1526 | Tyndale | And all countrees came to Egipte to Ioseph for to bye corne: because that the hunger was so sore in all landes. |
| Jacobean English | 1611 | King James | And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands. |
| Victorian English | 1833 | Webster | And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph to buy corn; because the famine was distressing in all lands. |
| Basic English | 1964 | Ogden | And all lands sent to Egypt, to Joseph, to get grain, for the need was great over all the earth. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Language | Genesis Chapter 41, Verse 57 |
| Cebuano | Ug ang tanan nga kayutaan miadto sa Egipto sa pagpamalit ug trigo kang Jose, kay sa tibook nga kayutaan midaku na ang gutom. |
| Croatian | Sav je svijet išao u Egipat k Josipu da kupuje žita, jer je strašna glad vladala po svem svijetu. |
| Danish | og Alverden kom til Ægypten for at købe Korn hos Josef; thi Hungersnøden tog til over hele Jorden. |
| Dutch | En alle landen kwamen in Egypte tot Jozef, om te kopen; want de honger was sterk in alle landen. |
| Finnish | Ja kaikista maista tultiin Egyptiin Joosefin luo ostamaan viljaa, sillä kaikissa maissa oli kova nälänhätä. |
| French | Et de tous les pays on arrivait en Égypte, pour acheter du blé auprès de Joseph; car la famine était forte dans tous les pays. |
| German | Und alle Lande kamen nach Ägypten, zu kaufen bei Joseph; denn die Teuerung war groß in allen Landen. |
| Indonesian-Bahasa Sehari-hari | Dari seluruh dunia orang-orang datang ke Mesir untuk membeli gandum dari Yusuf, karena kelaparan itu sungguh dahsyat di mana-mana. |
| Indonesian-Terjemahan Lama | Maka dari pada segala negeri datanglah orang ke Mesir mendapatkan Yusuf, hendak membeli gandum, karena sangat besarlah bala kelaparan dalam segala negeri itu. |
| Italian | E da tutti i paesi venivano in Egitto per acquistare grano da Giuseppe, perché la carestia infieriva su tutta la terra. |
| Maori | A ka haere nga whenua katoa ki Ihipa, ki a Hohepa, ki te hoko witi; no te mea he nui rawa te matekai o nga whenua katoa. |
| Norwegian | Og fra alle landene kom de til Josef i Egypten for å kjøpe korn; for hungersnøden var hård i alle landene. |
| Portuguese | Também de todas as terras vinham ao Egito, para comprarem de José; porquanto a fome prevaleceu em todas as terras. |
| Rumanian | Wi din toate yqrile venea lumea kn Egipt, ca sq cumpere grku dela Iosif; cqci kn toate yqrile era foamete mare. |
| Spanish | También de todos los países venían a Egipto para comprar provisiones a José, porque el hambre se había intensificado en toda la tierra. |
| Swedish | och från alla länder kom man till Josef i Egypten för att köpa säd, ty hungersnöden blev allt större i alla länder. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "distressing": distressingly. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "distressing" (pronounced di'stre"sing) |
| 7 | -s t r e" s i ng | stressing. |
| 5 | -r e" s i ng | addressing, compressing, depressing, digressing, dressing, expressing, impressing, oppressing, pressing, progressing, redressing, repressing, suppressing. |
| 4 | -e" s i ng | acquiescing, assessing, blessing, caressing, coalescing, confessing, guessing, messing, obsessing, possessing, professing, reassessing, recessing. |
| 3 | -s i ng | accessing, advancing, affixing, amassing, annexing, announcing, balancing, basing, bouncing, boxing, bracing, busing, bussing, buttressing, bypassing, canvassing, casing, ceasing, chasing, classing, coaxing, coercing, collapsing, commencing, condensing, conferencing, conversing, convincing, coursing, crisscrossing, crossing, cursing, cussing, dancing, debasing, decreasing, defacing, denouncing, diagnosing, disbursing, discussing, dismissing, dispensing, dispersing, displacing, distancing, divorcing, dosing, dousing, dowsing, eclipsing, effacing, embarrassing, embracing, encompassing, endorsing, enforcing, engrossing, enhancing, enticing, erasing, expensing, experiencing, facing, faxing, fencing, financing, fixing, flexing, focusing, forcing, freelancing, fundraising, fussing, gassing, glancing, greasing, grimacing, grossing, grousing, hairdressing, harassing, harnessing, hissing, horsing, icing, increasing, indexing, inducing, influencing, intermixing, introducing, invoicing, kissing, Lancing, lapsing, leasing, lensing, licensing, loosing, massing, menacing, mensing, mincing, missing, mixing, noticing, nursing, outdistancing, outpacing, outsourcing, overproducing, pacing, parsing, passing, perplexing, piecing, piercing, placing, policing, pouncing, practicing, prancing, prejudicing, pricing, processing, producing, promising, pronouncing, pulsing, racing, rebalancing, reducing, referencing, refinancing, refocusing, rehearsing, reimbursing, reinforcing, reintroducing, rejoicing, relapsing, relaxing, releasing, reminiscing, renouncing, replacing, repricing, reprocessing, reproducing, repulsing, repurchasing, resurfacing, retracing, reversing, rinsing, romancing, sacrificing, seducing, sensing, sentencing, sequencing, servicing, showcasing, silencing, slicing, sluicing, sourcing, spacing, spicing, splicing, sprucing, subleasing, surfacing, surpassing, taxing, teleconferencing, tossing, tracing, traipsing, traversing, trespassing, trouncing, unceasing, unconvincing, underpricing, unpromising, vexing, videoconferencing, voicing, waltzing, waxing, wincing, wissing, witnessing, xeroxing. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-g-i-i-n-r-s-s-s-t" | |
-1 letter: disserting. | |
-2 letters: desisting, dirtiness, disinters, dressings, insisters, resisting, rigidness, ringsides, sistering, stressing. | |
-3 letters: desiring, dingiest, disinter, dissents, disserts, distress, dressing, igniters, inditers, insiders, insisted, insister, nitrides, residing, resiting, ridgiest, ringside, seisings, sinister, stingers, stingier, striding, stringed, tidiness, trigness. | |
-4 letters: designs, desists, dieting, digests, digress, dingers, dingier, dingies, dirties, dissent, dissert, dissing, ditsier, editing, engirds. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-g-i-i-n-r-s-s-s-t" | |
+2 letters: distressingly. | |
+4 letters: steroidogenesis. | |
+5 letters: strongyloidiases. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)44 69 73 74 72 65 73 73 69 6E 67 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-.. .. ... - .-. . ... ... .. -. --. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000100 01101001 01110011 01110100 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110011 01101001 01101110 01100111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)D i s t r e s s i n g |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0044 0069 0073 0074 0072 0065 0073 0073 0069 006E 0067 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)3875858684718585758073 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Fiction 8. Quotations: Non-fiction | 9. Quotations: Speeches 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Bible Trace 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Orthography 19. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
